


Complications

by Cleo_Calliope



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Introspection, Major character birth, Politics, Pre-Canon, the author needs a life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 21:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12117690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleo_Calliope/pseuds/Cleo_Calliope
Summary: There are always politics in leading families, and something as joyous as a birth can also dash the ambitions of others.





	Complications

**Author's Note:**

> This story is something I wrong years ago and recently came across again. I liked it and thought that it was high time it was posted.
> 
> I started wondering one day what it would really have like to grow up in this Shire as the children of the most prominent and leading families. Merry, Pippin, and Frodo are children, but they are also the future Master of Buckland, Took and Thain, and Master of Bag End.
> 
> And what about the others? The siblings we know little about. Pippin was the youngest of his family, with three elder sisters. Pearl was nearly grown by the time he was born.

_1392 Sire Reckoning_

In the end, there had been a boy born and that made the multitude of questions and hopes and uncertainties that went before all moot points. Which should have made it easier, should have eased the tension and the pain... But it only made things more difficult for her. One more reminder of the way the world was, the place in it she didn't want but had and the place in it she wanted but could never possess. 

It wasn't that Pearl didn't like her little brother. All in all he wasn't _tooun_ complicated matters. It was now assured that things would go on as they ought. The Thainship would pass from father to son the way it should and all the questions Pearl had brought up, all the ambiguities she had come to represent for so many people, would disappear. Now the very aunts who had once been the most horrified by Pearl’s ambitions and would refuse even to look at her when she entered a room, were the ones to pat her hand and say how it was a shame that Pearl hadn't been born a boy, because she would have made a wonderful Thain. They could say that now, now that there was a son, and to them Pearl's threat to order the order of things had been rendered harmless. 

It didn't help matters that Pearl knew she would be a good Thain; that even her father, who had tried so hard not to acknowledge her talents, knew she'd make a good Thain. It was just salt on an open wound. 

Contrary to popular opinion, it wasn't the authority or even the title itself that was the issue, hunger for power for its own sake was not one of Pearl's faults. What rankled beyond all else was the simple denial of her place as the Thain's eldest child merely because she was female. What did this infant brother of hers have that would make him so much better suited for the Thainship? What was it about him being male that would make him better able to handle the emotional and mental drain the responsibilities of being Thain brought with it? What in the few, simple differences between their bodies said that he would care more about the Shire and it's peoples and understand their problems better than she could?

Pearl wasn't stupid, in fact it was her intelligence that had made her such a threat in the absence of a male heir. She knew that women had always had their place and that her chances of becoming Thain had always been slim. She'd been prepared to fight for the position and even prepared for the possibility that she would lose that fight.

Now she was denied even that chance. All her plans, preparations, and ambitions had ended with a squalling infant two years earlier. She'd been there when he'd been born, of course. She’s been old enough by then to tend to her mother during the birth. It had been she who'd had to walk the long corridor to where her father and various other members of the family had been waiting and tell them that it was a healthy boy. 

Standing there in that doorway, she'd forced the words past her lips and they had almost felt like a death sentence. Pearl had kept her shoulders strait and her head held high. She'd never once shown weakness to anyone and she had no intention of showing any now, especially at the moment of her defeat. The privilege of announcing the birth of the Thain's son had been hers as his eldest daughter and Pearl doubted anyone would have hated the duty more.

She'd left the room quickly. She didn't want to see their joy and relief. From there, she had gone to the nursery to tell the news to her two little sisters. The second announcement wasn't nearly as painful, but nor was it necessary. However, it saved her from being given the "privilege" of taking the new baby out to his father. That was one thing Pearl would not do. She couldn't stop the infant from taking over her place in the family, but she'd be damned if she'd give it up to him with her own hands. 

She'd sat for a long time, watching little Nel and Vinca play. They were young and had always been kept carefully oblivious to the power struggles in their family. They were both pretty, sweet-tempered girls who'd never caused anyone a moment's concern. Pimpernel was just old enough to perceive that all was not right with her older sister, but Pearl had forced a smile at her questioning look and bid her mind Pervinca. She'd worked too hard to protect her sisters from her own turmoil, and at least that plan could remain intact. 

In the two years since, Pearl could have used the comfort of sharing her feelings with someone... But she wouldn't take the simplicity of either of her sisters' lives from them. They, at least, were happy. So, Pearl kept her thoughts to herself as she had always done.

There were days she wanted to scream from the resentment and fury that welled up inside her. It would have been so much easier if she could hate the one who'd taken her chances from her. But little Pippin hadn't asked to be born and she couldn't hate him for something he had no control over. Nor could Pearl find it in her to hate their father. It was natural that his new son, his successor and heir, would have a more important place in his thoughts than a daughter. If fact, it must have been a relief for him to relegate Pearl back to the women after all the time she'd spent following after him, like the embodiment of his failure to yet produce a suitable heir. 

It was the others who Pearl found herself hating more and more. The aunts and uncles and cousins who had once treated Pearl with careful coolness and now felt free to let loose their scorn. She had become a joke to them and she was never allowed to forget it. Their coolness had born with it a hint of respect, even if it had been grudging. That had been taken from her with Pippin's birth as well.

Then, of course, their was her mother. Pearl was never sure what to think or feel about her. As beautiful and carelessly sweet as her two younger girls, she had always kept herself well out of her older daughter's troubles. Pearl could almost believe she was completely unaware of it all, if she didn't already know that was impossible. She said nothing, and rarely interfered in Pearl's affairs, preferring to spend her time teaching the other girls of the Smials how to sew and cook and weave. Politics was not her domain and she would not become involved in it, even for her older daughter's sake.

And in this manor had the last two years past, with little indication that anything was going to change. And, in fact, as one day blended into the next, nothing did.

But there was something in the back of Pearl's mind. Something that said that this hadn't ended. Though Pearl had resigned herself to what must be, she still kept her eyes open, watching. 

For what though, she didn't know.

  


  


**End**  
8 February 2005


End file.
